Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. In my minds eye I can see Santa and his helpers making their last minute preparations; feeding the reindeer; polishing the harness and the sleigh; making sure all of the packages are accounted for and the famous red suit is back from the cleaners. Elves running every which way; dealing with last minute details and making sure Santa's yearly trip goes off without a hitch.
Similar arrangements are going on at the homestead, but not on a North Pole scale. We will be loading up the front wheel drive sleigh ourselves in a couple of hours and heading off to a couple of parties, and I am trying to get my old iPhone to load my Christmas music so I can use it like an iPod during today's festivities. But it's not going well.
I dumped the iPhone for a Droid about a year ago- one of the happiest days of my life- and I haven't messed with the cussed thing much since. I had forgotten how much of a PITA the thing is. With the Droid loading music is as easy as drag and drop. The iPod has to 'SYNC'. And it can only sync music in the iPod format. So, if you didn't buy a song from Apple or rip the CD using iTunes it has to be converted to the WMA format before it can be synced. Oh, and loading all of Christmas music means I had to wipe out the music that was on the cussed thing to start with, and after Christmas I need to go through this again to restore the music I had on there in the first place. Anyone who believes this is a good system probably has never been introduced to any other.
I know I promised no bad news until after Christmas, but I had to rant about that frustration, and add that Friday night I was talking to a group of iPhone 5 users, all of whom were crabbing about short battery life. SUCKERS!
And what little snow we had has melted, and none is forecast until the 26th, so no White Christmas this year, which isn't rare. This area has only had 7 White Christmases in the last 40 years. My memory says that ain't right, but it could just be that snow at Christmas creates a better memory than a rainy one.
Well; except for one year.
I think it was 1966. Every year on Christmas Eve we would visit my Mom's parents up in Reading Ohio; about an hour ride or so. The eating and gifts would last late into the evening, and then packing the car with kids and presents would take another half hour. we usually hit the road about 10:00 and I was asleep by 10:02.
For some reason this year I was wide awake and watching the cars we passed on the expressway and watching the rain fall. We came up beside a bright red 1967 Ford Falcon station wagon; the entire back end crammed with toys and wrapped presents. as we drew up next to the drivers window I saw the driver's full white beard and red suit; yeah, it was him. Santa took his eyes off the road long enough to see a very wide-eyed young man staring at him, and then took one gloved hand off the wheel to give me an admonishing finger wag.
I was asleep before we passed his hood ornament.
For some reason ever since I keep my eyes open for red vehicles on rainy Christmas Eves. But I've never seen him again. I guess we each only get one chance to catch Santa on his rounds. I had mine almost 50 years ago. and still remember it like it was yesterday.
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